An Exploration of the Values and Behaviours Determining Sustainable Well-Being in Hungary

This study is an attempt to address the issue of exploring values and behaviour in terms of how they relate and contribute to well-being and sustainable lifestyles. As argued by Rokeach (1968), values work as a “centrally held, enduring belief’ (p. 161.). In everyday life this belief guides actions and judgments in specific situations and helps the navigation through decision-making situations. According to Guez and Allen (2000) behaviour is “the way an individual acts towards people, society or objects” (p. 9). In other words, behaviour can be interpreted as values manifest in decision-making and can be seen “in reference to social norms, or the way in which one treats others or handles objects” (p. 9). Values and behaviours, which are influenced by culture, family background and social environment, have an impact on lifestyles, consumer habits and decisions, and appear individually or in communities. For these reasons exploring values, traits and motivations is essential, especially in the case of young people, who form the basis of the change of generations

A stochastic approach to improve macula detection in retinal images

In this paper, we present an approach to improve detectors used in medical image processing by fine-tuning their parameters for a certain dataset. The proposed algorithm uses a stochastic search algorithm to deal with large search spaces. We investigate the effectiveness of this approach by evaluating it on an actual clinical application. Namely, we present promising results with outperforming four state-of-the-art algorithms used for the detection of the center of the sharp vision (macula) in digital fundus images

The size of a pond in 2D invasion percolation

We consider invasion percolation on the square lattice. It has been proved by van den Berg, Peres, Sidoravicius and Vares, that the probability that the radius of a so-called pond is larger than n, differs at most a factor of order log n from the probability that in critical Bernoulli percolation the radius of an open cluster is larger than n. We show that these two probabilities are, in fact, of the same order. Moreover, we prove an analogous result for the volume of a pond.Comment: 11 page

Mineotaur: a tool for high-content microscopy screen sharing and visual analytics

L

Intrathalamic connections shape spindle activity – a modelling study

Spindle oscillations are generated predominantly during sleep state II, through cyclical interactions between thalamocortical and reticular neurons. Inhibition from reticular cells is critical for this activity; it enables burst firing by the de-inactivation of T-type Ca2+ channels. While the effect of different channelopathies on spindling is extensively investigated, our knowledge about the role of intrathalamic connections is limited. Therefore, we explored how the connection pattern and the density of reticular inhibitory synapses affect spindle activity in a thalamic network model. With more intrareticular connections, synchronous firing of reticular cells, and intraspindle burst frequency decreased, spindles lengthened. In models with strong intrareticular inhibition spindle activity was impaired, and a sustained 6–8 Hz oscillation was generated instead. The strength of reticular innervation onto thalamocortical cells played a key role in the generation of oscillations; it determined the amount of thalamocortical cell bursts, and consequently spindle length. Focal inputs supported bursts but affected only a few cells thus barely reinforced network activity, while diffuse contacts aided bursts only when a sufficient number of reticular cells fired synchronously. According to our study, alterations in the connection pattern influence thalamic activities and may contribute to pathological conditions, or alternatively, they serve as a compensatory mechanism

Területpolitika helyi szociális ellátórendszert érintő döntéseinek hatása a vidéki helyi társadalmak (falvak és kisvárosok) népesség megtartó képességére és a helyi hatalom érdekérvényesítésére = Decision of the Regional Policy effect on the Local Organisation of Social Services an the preservation of the population ability of the Rural Local Society (village, small-town) and the Assertion of the Interests of Local Governments

A kutatás rávilágított arra, hogy a területpolitika "beavatkozási" kísérletei 1990-2002 között, a kistérségek életvilágára; társadalmi dinamikájára, s a településeinek fejlődési trendjére, vagy azok gazdaságára igen csekély számszerűsíthető hatással voltak: Az elemzésekből kitetszik, hogy a decentralizált forrásallokáció inkább kedvez a vidékies kistérségeknek, míg inkább a centralizáltan kezelt fejlesztési támogatások a városias kistérségekbe, városokba jutottak el. Feltételezhető, amennyiben ha a terület- és településfejlesztési források nagyobb arányban jutnak decentralizált elosztási rendszerbe (a megfigyelt időszakban 14% volt), akkor abban az esetben a vidékies kistérségek nagyobb arányban juthatnának támogatáshoz, de a forrásallokáció decentralizációja önmagában nem garantálja a hátrányok leküzdését, mert a fejlettség szintje és fejlesztési források mértéke között nem mutatható ki közvetlen kapcsolat. Minden bizonnyal, a hatékony település- és területfejlesztés nem a centralizált és a decentralizált szintek prioritásán múlik egyedül. A struktúra egészét szükséges érinteni, hogy a rendelkezésre álló fejlesztési források a kívánt eredményt elérjék; a leszakadó kistérségek felzárkózását, a fejlettebb kistérségek számának gyarapodását. A fejlesztési források hatékonyabb felhasználását minden bizonnyal az endogén források alaposabb feltárása és ehhez időben rendelt külső források csatlakoztatása jelentené. E fejlesztési stratégia erősebb kooperációt követel meg a helyi társadalmak szintjén, és nyitottabb, reflexívebb politikát igényelne a kormányzati szintek irányából. | The research revealed that intervention of regional policy between 1990 and 2002 took only a little effect on the life-world and social dynamics of small regions and on the development or economy of their settlements. It is obvious from the analysis that decentralised resource allocation was rather propitious for rurality small regions while urbanity small regions and cities benefit more from centralised development subsidy. Presumably if regional and settlement development resources would get into decentralised allocation in a higher rate (14% in the observed period) rurality small regions may get more subsidy. However, decentralisation of resource allocation itself will not ensure overcoming the disadvantages because it cannot be shown that there is a direct connection between developmental level and the amount of development resources. In all conscience effective regional and settlement development do not depend only on the priority of centralised and decentralised levels. The whole structure should be concerned so that the available development resources have the required effect on improving the underdeveloped small regions and increasing the number of developed small regions. In all conscience development resources could be used more efficiently by a deeper revelation of inner resources and connecting outer resources to them. This development strategy requires closer cooperation in local society and opener and more reflexive governmental policy